When You Face a Huge Problem, Write Your Way Beyond It
Write on a blog that’s published on the internet, not a journal
If you asked me what writing is, I’d give a one-word response: therapy.
Admitting you write as a form of therapy doesn’t make you broken or weak either. Writing is an art form that can get you through the biggest struggles and to the other side.
I noticed two years ago something weird: when I experience a meltdown, my default habit is to write about it. Even if no one reads it or it helps no one, it doesn’t matter.
There Is Magic in Writing Your Problems Down
Problems in your head seem logical. Problems that are written down seem like puzzles. Add the action of publishing that work online, and you have a tool to survive anything. Why?
When you publish your writing online, you’re going to be held accountable. Your thoughts can’t lie to you because the prospect of someone reading what you write plays on your conscience and keeps you honest.
Write on a blog that’s published on the internet, not a journal.
People worship journaling like it’s the saving grace and will solve climate change. These journal worshippers make me sick and make me want to vomit into a brown paper bag.
They spend their days writing into their journals and lying about every little problem they face. They write in their journal with the innocence of a virgin. Not realizing they are lying more than a politician.
Show me your journal, and I’ll show you where you are bullsh*tting yourself.
The writing part of journaling is cool, but the chance of lying to yourself is high. Nobody is going to read your journal — and that’s the problem.
The Anger Is Different After Writing
Notice your mood before and after writing. Is it better or worse? I’m willing to bet it’s better. The reason is that writing takes a huge amount of energy.
To write is to think.
To think while facing a huge problem and get it onto the page is exhausting. Once the problem is on the page, the task of making it useful then comes into play when writing online.
If you just write about problems and don’t offer any solutions or thoughts that are derived from those problems, well, you’ve just written a useless pile of junk.
Nobody ever read an article about a problem in isolation and got overjoyed by it. It’s what happened before the problem, in between the problem, and after the problem which helps the writer and the reader benefit.
The benefit for the writer is less negative emotions because they’ve been left inside the computer on a blog somewhere, not trapped inside their head where the energy can’t escape.
Problems Are Potential Energy for Writing
I get my energy to write from problems. Without problems, there’d be nothing interesting to say.
A problem is an energy bubble that can multiply when you write about it and mix it with usefulness.
Breaking up with your ex, watching your dog die, or dealing with a pathetic, insecure, lonely man of a boss at work are great problems to have. They are the start of some of the best writing that you’ll ever do.
Look for the problems in your life and then write about them. See how the problems look on the page.
Make Writing Straight After a Problem a Habit
If it wasn’t for writing online, I’d probably have a shrink and a packet of pills to keep me living.
The unconscious habit I have is to write right after a problem. It’s the only way to make sense of the madness.
Without writing about a problem early on, the problem gets leverage on me. The longer I go without writing about a problem, the more the problem wins and I lose. My process looks like this:
- Face a huge pain in the ass problem.
- Fire up the desktop.
- Pour a pot of lemongrass tea.
- Sit down.
- Put on the headphones and blast Deadmau5 mixtapes.
- Make the problem the headline of my article.
- Write about the problem in detail.
- Force myself to find one solution to the problem.
- Reflect on the problem at the end of the article titled “Final Thought”.
- Turn the computer off and have an early night.
- Wake up the next day and measure the difference.
Self-help bloggers write about habits as though they are as good as million-dollar cheques you can cash in the next 30 days. To have habits is nice. They work. But the habit of writing after a huge problem squashes every other habit known to humankind.
Try it for yourself and see what I mean.
The Elegance of the First Sentence
When you write about a huge problem, treat the first sentence with extreme care. Don’t waste the first sentence. Think about how you can open up the story of your problem and its benefit with a first sentence that makes an impact.
The process of writing the first sentence will shape how you write the rest of the story. The first sentence is either the start of you lying to yourself or the single sentence that tells the truth. This double-edged sword is gorgeous to dance with when writing.
The Ease at Which the Words Pour Out Is Glorious
What blows my mind about writing about a problem is just how quickly the words come out. I don’t even have to try. If you have writer’s block, perhaps you need to write about your boulder-sized problems more often.
I wrote about having six years of writing deleted the other day, and the article just overcame my entire body.
I couldn’t hear my phone ringing or the fridge calling me to eat a snack — there was complete silence and focus as I tried to grapple with the situation, through writing, and pick my ego up off the floor in the process.
By the end of the writing session, I had calmness. The next day I took that meditative state and tried a new strategy with the thinking I got from my writing session. A solution soon presented itself and the power the problem had over me was released.
This entire process of writing and the transformation that follows is incredible. I want you to have access to this tool for yourself. You deserve it.
Final Thought
Writing is a tactic you can use whenever you face a huge problem in your life and feel yourself succumbing to it or not knowing how to move past it.
Write online, anywhere, about your problem, and let the words come out of you. The ease at which those words flow will shock you and transform how you see the problem and the available solutions that follow in the days and weeks after the writing session.
When you face a huge problem in your life, sit down and write about it so that you may move beyond it and perhaps help one other person in the process.